In the previous chapter, we saw how suspicious most British citizens appeared to be of their elected politicians and of standards of political conduct more generally. We also saw, somewhat surprisingly, that such suspicions were not greatly exacerbated, at least in the medium term, by the frenzied press coverage surrounding MPs’ expenses in May 2009. But if citizens are sceptical of their politicians’ conduct and integrity, there are also grounds for others to be sceptical about the general importance of such critical attitudes. For a start, politicians as a class have always been distrusted and derided, and yet democratic politics in advanced industrial democracies has still rubbed along. Far larger proportions of citizens regularly vote to choose their representatives than express confidence in their representatives’ standards, and most citizens are seemingly content with a representative model of democracy (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2001, 2002; Allen and Birch forthcoming). Put another way, dissatisfaction with the standards of politicians’ conduct has rarely translated into dissatisfaction with the ideals of democracy or diminished support for the political community. Nor has it resulted in a general lack of compliance with democratic decisions or a refusal to turn to politicians for help and advice (O’Neill 2002).